Outlook 365 Email: Both @Action Support AND Folder storage?

PeterByrom

Registered
Hi all

One of the things I love about Gmail is how you can tag emails, which means it's possible to see an email from two perspectives:

1. the topic of the email (e.g. "Invoices")
2. Whether the email is also actionable (i.e. "@action" or "@action support")

If the email is actionable, you can still come at the email by clicking through the topic tag. And when the email is no longer actionable, you just remove the @action tag, and the email is already archived by virtue of the fact that you already tagged the topic.

Outlook, on the other hand, doesn't have this. It just has folders. This means you are torn between storing the email in "@action" OR "invoices", for example.

Categories seem to have been killed off - no way of accessing or using them.

As for flagging tasks (so that the flag could be the equivalent of "@action support"), this would be great if only I could clean up the hundreds of items which are already flagged! There is literally no way to select all and remove the flag statuses!

So, seems I'm stuck...

Any suggestions as to how I could connect an email in outlook 365 with BOTH it's topic and @action support status?
 

alevici

Registered
Hi all

One of the things I love about Gmail is how you can tag emails, which means it's possible to see an email from two perspectives:

1. the topic of the email (e.g. "Invoices")
2. Whether the email is also actionable (i.e. "@action" or "@action support")

If the email is actionable, you can still come at the email by clicking through the topic tag. And when the email is no longer actionable, you just remove the @action tag, and the email is already archived by virtue of the fact that you already tagged the topic.

Outlook, on the other hand, doesn't have this. It just has folders. This means you are torn between storing the email in "@action" OR "invoices", for example.

Categories seem to have been killed off - no way of accessing or using them.

As for flagging tasks (so that the flag could be the equivalent of "@action support"), this would be great if only I could clean up the hundreds of items which are already flagged! There is literally no way to select all and remove the flag statuses!

So, seems I'm stuck...

Any suggestions as to how I could connect an email in outlook 365 with BOTH it's topic and @action support status?
Outlook now has tags and you can use as many as you want and also create permanent folder search for them

1589789457618.png
 

gtdChamp

Registered
Hi all

One of the things I love about Gmail is how you can tag emails, which means it's possible to see an email from two perspectives:

1. the topic of the email (e.g. "Invoices")
2. Whether the email is also actionable (i.e. "@action" or "@action support")

If the email is actionable, you can still come at the email by clicking through the topic tag. And when the email is no longer actionable, you just remove the @action tag, and the email is already archived by virtue of the fact that you already tagged the topic.

Outlook, on the other hand, doesn't have this. It just has folders. This means you are torn between storing the email in "@action" OR "invoices", for example.

Categories seem to have been killed off - no way of accessing or using them.

As for flagging tasks (so that the flag could be the equivalent of "@action support"), this would be great if only I could clean up the hundreds of items which are already flagged! There is literally no way to select all and remove the flag statuses!

So, seems I'm stuck...

Any suggestions as to how I could connect an email in outlook 365 with BOTH it's topic and @action support status?
Hi,
Yes, you can use categories in Outlook for Web. However, what you might find useful is to:
1) File the email in folder/categories (Invoice)
2) Create a task for the email and add it to the @Action (whatever context) list

Tasks in Outlook for web is now integrated with MS Todo and all lists in there surfaces in Outlook and vice versa. If you are like me and live in the MS Ecosystem and Outlook is your prime source of info/actionable items, Outlook+MS Todo might be your best friend.
Hope that helps.
1589832694447.png
 

gtdChamp

Registered
Hi all

One of the things I love about Gmail is how you can tag emails, which means it's possible to see an email from two perspectives:

1. the topic of the email (e.g. "Invoices")
2. Whether the email is also actionable (i.e. "@action" or "@action support")

If the email is actionable, you can still come at the email by clicking through the topic tag. And when the email is no longer actionable, you just remove the @action tag, and the email is already archived by virtue of the fact that you already tagged the topic.

Outlook, on the other hand, doesn't have this. It just has folders. This means you are torn between storing the email in "@action" OR "invoices", for example.

Categories seem to have been killed off - no way of accessing or using them.

As for flagging tasks (so that the flag could be the equivalent of "@action support"), this would be great if only I could clean up the hundreds of items which are already flagged! There is literally no way to select all and remove the flag statuses!

So, seems I'm stuck...

Any suggestions as to how I could connect an email in outlook 365 with BOTH it's topic and @action support status?
@PeterByrom ,
If you want to clear all your flagged emails in outlook web, you can (in the search bar on top) enter isflagged:yes
Once all flagged emails are listed, select them all (shift select top & bottom), right click and select unflag. The UI does not udpate, but if you run the search again, you'll see no emails are showing so, all the email's flagged status has been removed:
1589833333050.png

Hope this helps :)
 

PeterByrom

Registered
This is immensely helpful! Thank you!

Tasks view is still cluttered with flagged items that I cannot select, but that's because it's old MS To Do stuff. I reckon I could manage this stuff within the email view!

I can't see any way to search by category in the email view other than "category:[insert tag here]"?
 

gtdChamp

Registered
This is immensely helpful! Thank you!

Tasks view is still cluttered with flagged items that I cannot select, but that's because it's old MS To Do stuff. I reckon I could manage this stuff within the email view!

I can't see any way to search by category in the email view other than "category:[insert tag here]"?
In MS To do, there is a specific smart list called "Flagged Emails" that will only show you tasks (emails) that are flagged in Outlook:
1589839665648.png
Yes, thats the right search command to search emails of a specific category, you can combine it with other filters like from/to and so on.
You could also create a smart folder in favorite for a specific category if thats useful for you.
Happy GTDing :)
 
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